


First Fantasy NaNoWriMo: 21: The Birthday Visit

by SkiesOverTokyo



Series: FirstFan NaNoWriMo Drabbles [21]
Category: First Fantasy (Webcomic)
Genre: Characters Are in Fandom, Metafiction, References to Depression, Self-Esteem Issues, pep talk from your fictional characters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-21
Updated: 2018-11-21
Packaged: 2019-08-27 08:58:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,320
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16699417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SkiesOverTokyo/pseuds/SkiesOverTokyo
Summary: Since it's my birthday, I'm writing myself self-indulgent metafic where my characters give me a pep talk. Go me!





	First Fantasy NaNoWriMo: 21: The Birthday Visit

I had begun to suspect something even before those two arrived.  
Call it a writer’s intuition, something in the air, or the fact that I had had, for the last couple of days, the distinct feeling of being followed by someone who did not quite get the idea of covert surveillance, and, furthermore, did not quite understand the concept of sticking out like a sore thumb, being dressed as he tended to be, in quasi-medieval-cum-early Renaissance-esque  clothing, rather than something more befitting a cold November, in the late 2010s, in Home Counties England.   
  
Somehow, in the back of my mind, even though I thought it couldn’t be possible, I kept catching glances of a skinny young man, roughly my height and build, trailing after me in a not-too-subtle way. On occasions, I only just caught him before he slipped out of view, but on no fewer than six occasions in three days, he could be clearly seen perching, like an own-brand Assassin’s Creed character, atop signposts, bus-stops, and on bollards, pretending I couldn’t see him.   
  
To Syl’s credit, the poncho-and-black dress look, once she lost the staff, blended in better, though her lack of direction meant that she tended to lose me, and have to be rescued from the middle of a traffic island by Tam, though his ability to move back to the safety of pavements and pedestrianised areas  with her in tow was uncannily impressive. And so, for about a week, Tam and Syl, two characters I had created just over two years ago, stars of a reasonably successful webcomic I wrote and drew, followed me around a small Home Counties town in the depths of Winter.  
  
At first I thought I was going crazy. Hey, I thought. This is it. You’ve finally snapped. Work and such, and the whole self-sufficient, living by yourself thing, and the encroaching of darkness in the winter months, not to mention depression and anxiety have finally taken their toll, and now you’re seeing two fictional characters be really, impressively, first-day-at-spy-school bad at tailing you. Which, was, of course, as absurd as the fact I was seeing them at all. Of course, I researched, and, what the hey, it seemed it wasn’t that odd for fictional characters to defictionalise themselves, wander around in the real world, and bump into their creators. I mean, if Alan Moore met John Constantine in a pub once…who’s to say Tam and Syl _weren’t_ wandering around a commuter belt town in search of something or other, and we just kept bumping into one-another? I mean, Alan Moore is a paragon of sanity, after all…  
  
And then, suddenly, a week after they had first appeared came a knock on the door. Not overly late at night, not expecting parcels or visitors, the usual doorstep-salesmen of products and religion would use the bell. And yet, another hearty knock followed. I sighed, paused my videogame, got up and investigated. Maybe it was someone who’d got the wrong door number, or looking for directions, or the police making enquiries in the area. I opened the door.  
  
Blinked.  
  
“Oh.”  
Tam Bargeld grinned at me.   
“Hey.”  
How does one start a conversation with a character that’s not only of your own creation, but also someone who is based, down to his very appearance and, some, albeit not all, mannerisms?  
Before I had a chance to come up with something, Syl politely coughed, and Tam, after a second, stuck out a hand for me to shake  
“Tam Bargeld, thief, mage, adventurer, occasional monster hunter, at your service. And this is-“  
“I know who you are.” I managed to say, surprised how different the voice was coming out of a face so very much like what I saw in the mirror. I’d expected something a little rougher, a little more streetwise, something more cockney or North London, but his accent was closer to Midlands, strangely…Black Country-ish.  
  
“Oh. Syl, he knows who we are. You can put away the business card-“  
Syl had gently leaned on him, in the way that one does when trying to get your best friend to shut up, so as to make a good impression on the person who created you, after dimension-hopping hijinks.  
“I’m sorry about him, Tom. It’s a pleasure to meet you. Though, I feel like you’ve met us before, but we haven’t met you before…if that makes sense?”  
Syl, however, was more how I imagined her to sound-a soft, vaguely Scandinavian lilt to her voice, a little lower in timbre than I’d thought, but…  
  
I was, at this point, beginning to recover my composure, and nodded.  
“Look. Would you like to come in?”  
Both of them nodded emphatically, and something inside me felt bad for keeping both of them, despite their thick winter clothing, out in the street, secluded as it was.   
As I led them from the front door to the room that served as living room, dining room, and bedroom, thoughts engaged in a small, but speedily fought civil war.  
  
I was talking to two people who had stalked me, albeit impressively poorly for the best part of a week. Why hadn’t they shown their faces earlier, or followed me home, knowing full well I could see them, and introduced themselves? There was a lot, only two-hundred pages into their adventures, I didn’t know, or had simply not got round to showing in the story yet. For all I knew, they would be violent and unpredictable, or not take their shoes off, or not like anything food wise I offered them, or would stay in the house for weeks on end until either being pushed out or finding something better to do.   
  
Would they visit my friend, on who Syl was based? Had they visited her already? Were other characters from First Fantasy, at this very moment, running around South East England, until they bumped into me, and vented their displeasure at my lack of focus upon them, or worse, their as yet only presumed demises? I winced at the idea of the entire La Defilé Noir, all seven of them probably stinking and muddy from cross-countryside trekking, rocking up at my door, and demanding alcohol, when I had none in the house.   
  
Worse still, I felt strangely responsible for this weird little gaggle of characters. Tam and Syl, as had already been demonstrated, had not really got to grips with this dimension, and the idea of, for example, someone as unpredictable as Varya the Bloody stalking the streets of Oxford or Aylesbury or London, armed to the teeth and with all the mental stability of a Beyblade in zero gravity, filled me with dread. Could an author be held responsible if his creation went on a killing spree? Alternatively, if one of my characters were to come to grief, would some Doc Brown paradox kick in and wipe them not only from my comic, but from my memory altogether.  
  
Reaching the living/dining/bed room Tam and Syl flopped onto the sofa, and I took the armchair. I was relieved to see my creations had taken off their boots, carefully put them onto the shoerack, and had even placed their bags on a nearby chair. So, they weren’t that bad in that department.   
  
“We’re sorry for following you around” Tam mumbled, without prompting  
“See, we…we’re kinda just visiting. Uh…it’s something you won’t probably write in the comic for a while, but there’s something called a dimension pass. It’s kinda like a train ticket…but instead of stations, it’s dimensions. Yeah.”  
“But why did you come here? Is it something important? Or something that I need to do, or not do in the story?”  
  
They looked at me blankly.  
“Are…is this like that film where the fictional characters don’t want their series to end, so they visit the real world and try and talk their creators round to…continue, but all but one of them get killed off in a weird, and difficult to follow metatexual way”  
Another blink. They exchanged glances.  
“The truth is, it’s nothing like that, Tom”, Syl began.  
“We just wanted to…well, one doesn’t usually find themselves able to talk to the person who created them. And I mean that more in the deity than parent sense. I mean, you even created our gods in that head of yours…”  
  
“Call it curiosity” Tam continued.  
“Curiosity and a vested interest in your happiness. You know, in general.”  
Syl patted the space between her and Tam, and, after a few seconds, in which time seemed to flow through the hourglass like especially sandy treacle, I joined them. Close to, the little differences between Tam and myself, and Syl and my friend became apparent. Tam had a slight tan, his jaw was set a little thicker than mine, and as he lazily slung an arm around me, Syl’s arm going round the other side, more muscular. Otherwise, he could have passed as a slightly sportier twin.   
  
“So. This is a nice place.”  
I nodded, momentarily at a loss for words  
“You worked hard for this, you know. I don’t mean just a roof over your head, and a place to call your own. I mean”  
Tam made a sweeping gesture with his free hand.   
“Everything. All you.”  
“But I-“  
“No buts. And yes, you still have a way to go, but…”  
  
“But” Syl continued  
“Everything has to start with a step. One step, then two, and before you know it, you’re walking forward, and then jogging, then running. And then you look back and you realise how far you’ve come.”  
“Did you literally hop dimensions and follow me around for a week to give me a pep-talk?”  
I laughed.  
“I mean, it’s…aside from the fact it’s, well…you two”  
  
It was absurd. In essence, I was sitting here, taking advice from two people who were, on a conceptual level, simplified projections of myself and a friend, written and drawn and designed by myself, in a world I had created, that they had travelled from, to come and give me said peptalk.  
_But isn’t that the basis of all self-improvements_ , a little voice that I hoped did not join the conversation in physical form said, somewhere in my head _. Only you can improve yourself, because only you know yourself truly. Any positive change has to come from you_.  
  
“Does it matter?” Syl asked. “Does it matter where we came from, that, in essence you created us, or thought into being the world that we come from? Does that devalue us somehow?”  
I shook my head, and Syl smiled  
“We...know you’ve been struggling. With anxiety. With depression. With, well, a number of things. We came here to give you something. To spend a little time with you. Because…”  
She trailed off, and I was surprised to find myself continuing.  
“I am not alone. Because, bit by bit I’m improving.”  
  
I got up, and, to my surprise, they both followed me over to the desk. I rummaged, found what I was looking for, opened it, and showed them  
“See. This is the very first page of First Fantasy. It’s rough, it’s not even a tenth of what I can do now, I would draw this so much better these days but…”  
“But you started. You persevered. You got better. You stuck with it till it became second nature, and you drew and you drew and you learned how to do things better.”  
  
Syl leafed a dozen or so pages onward, nodded, showed me the very end of Chapter One”  
“See how much progress you have already? Tam, you still look weird in this. Never have your hair cut like that again.”  
Tam picked up another of the folders, the most recent, and turned to Syl, showing her.  
Without a word, they turned to me, showing a page nearly two years old and another less than two months old.  
“And voila! Progress. Just…remember. Everything in life is like this. I had to learn to use my powers as a shaman, he” she jabbed a thumb at Tam  
“Had to learn how to be a thief and a mage, even if he’s terrible at stealth, and you”  
She gently poked my forehead  
“You can heal. You can fix yourself, with help, a day at a time. Remember. One foot, one step, every day. One day, you’ll look back, and realise how far you’ve come. Some days you’ll stumble, some days you’ll slip and fall backwards, some days you won’t move forward or back. But you will get there. We promise.”  
She smiled, and kept smiling until I managed to smile back.  
“You got this.”  
   
They carefully handed me back the folders, and, wandering into the kitchen made tea, Syl gently handing me a cup, and hugging me gently from behind. I was surprised, as I sipped, how quickly those two had mastered the electric kettle, and hoped they didn’t take this knowledge back with them too speedily.  
“I’m always…well…you know, it’s more the other me, but…you know. You’re not alone.”  
I nodded, smiled  
“Thanks Syl”  
“No problem, Tom.”  
  
Tam found a movie from somewhere in the DVD rack, and, with a little instruction, put it on, rummaged, again with direction for snack and curled next to me, Syl on the other side.  
“So…Tom”  
“Yes, Tam?”  
“How does our series en-“  
“Spoilers”   
“Spoilsport.”  
  
And we settled into companionable silence, the warmth of the two of them slowly but surely lulling me to sleep, as the movie went on. The last thing I remembered of them was Tam jokingly muttering  
“Doesn’t the villain look like you know who…?”  
And sleep took me, curled between the most unlikely of friends.  
  
I woke, still in the clothes from the night before, tucked into bed. Someone, I assumed Syl, had gone to the trouble of arranging the various stuffed toys around my bed onto one neat row, a menagerie of Pokemon, game and anime characters and…  
I blinked. A wrapped object…  
I picked up my glasses from the side table, put them on  
Two wrapped objects, neatly placed side-by-side. A third on my desk, in front of the PC.  
  
I sat up in bed, realising, as I checked my phone, that today was my birthday.  
It hit me like a kilogram of feathers.   
  
Tam and Syl had travelled through time and space to give me a birthday present, and mental health advice. It would be mad if it didn’t bring a smile to my face. That was just typical them. I reached for the first parcel, wrapped neatly in brown paper that felt thicker and better made than anything I’d expected them to use. Neatly tied with string. This had to be Syl, but, to my surprise, the crabbed handwriting marked this out as Tam’s handiwork. I pulled at the complex knot, it gave way and the package fell open to  reveal a small, carefully made stuff toy, that, from adorably rendered little scowl to the messy way his hair didn’t quite sit flat, to the tiny stiff cloth daggers tucked into his belt, was a perfect, if cute-i-fied likeness of Tam Bargeld. A maker’s mark on the tag marked it as a product of “Tetsu and Yoshi’s Item Emporium-Make Your Own Doll Service.”  
  
The other package, in slightly more elaborate wrapping paper, and with a bow, the wrapping paper neatly folded in what this world would call origami, contained one of Syl, from the same premises, but with what I suspected to be more of Syl’s actual hand in it, the stitching too fine to be machine, a little tell-tale sign here and there that she’d added to what she’d bought. A pair of tiny glasses sat upon her nose, a hand held a little metal staff, that, to my surprise, was entirely removable, topped with a crystal, and even her boots, no bigger than that you’d find on an Action Man, were carefully laced up.  
  
I carefully picked both up, and gave them pride of place on the bookshelf nearest my desk, and turned my attention to the parcel on my desk. Written, on notepaper I recognised vaguely as my own was the following, in Syl’s flowing handwriting.

 _Dear Tom_  
  
Happy birthday. We didn’t want to wake you when we left, so we took your keys, locked the door, and put them through the letterbox.

I checked. They had indeed. I pocketed them, returned and kept reading

 _We’re not sure when we’ll be back in your world. Dimension tickets are a very difficult item to get, (as you probably already know. We’ll go dungeoning again shortly, but it could be months before we find another one. We_ **did** have another two, but someone, no guesses who, stole them. So they might be around to yours…at some point. (If you didn’t guess, it’s Matias and Nura. But you knew that.)  
  
We hope you like your presents. Tam wanted to get you something practical, I wanted to get you something that would remind you of us, (as though you don’t have two hundred pages of comic already), and so we compromised.  
  
We have been here, are here, and will be here for you.   
  
For the adventure so far. For the journey before you.  
  
Tam and Syl.

I undid the wrapping paper, and found myself holding a thick leatherbound book, a little smaller than a laptop computer. Someone, and my money was on Tam, had stuck a label on the worn leather, scribbed “Road Diary, Year 15”, and left it at that. I opened it, and began flicking through. On every page, handwritten notes, photos that looked like they had been taken with a primitive camera, sketched maps, cut-out sections of real maps, sections of slightly faded newsprint,  even something that looked like a crushed flower on one page. Sketches of people, of places, of things, annotated in handwritten notes by Syl, so I presumed the sketches were Tam’s.   
  
Familiar faces-Nura, Matias, the Defilé Noir, Petyr’s company, and unfamiliar-a beautiful man with long, flowing hair and sharp teeth, a woman all in gothic spiky armour carrying a Warhammer the size of a small chest of drawers, a small girl in dungarees with mismatched eyes.  Events I recognised, events I had planned out for future volumes, and things in=between and things yet to be.   
  
On the final page, Tam had sketched.  
  
Me? Himself?  
  
Impossible to tell.   
  
Underneath, in his familiar handwriting, he had written, simply.  
  
_Thank you. Till we meet again. As Syl says; “Keep walking forward, you’ll get there in the end”._  
  
I carefully hugged book and letter to my chest, then carefully shelved them, making sure that the looser contents did not fall out of the book, placing the letter in the front. I steadily read it, every night, drawing during the day, the book and the story touching where they needed to, but embellishing in other places. Like all good myths.

 

-

 

And one evening, some weeks later, I think I spot a young man in a long, faded red leather coat, hair tied back from a pale, wind-pinked face, scarf pulled up, and an ugly scar down one side of his right eye, following me back from the supermarket. I turn, just before he has a chance to duck into a shop, raise my hand in greeting. After a few seconds, Matias D’Appia raises a hand in answer, waves, and walks, with all the purpose of a man who has no idea what a videogame even is, into the local branch of a second hand game retailer.   
  
A few hours later, there is a knock on the door, and I am unsurprised to find D’Appia on my doorstep, wearing a sheepish expression.  
“Come on in” I tell him, “I’ve been expecting you."   
He nods, follows me into the house  
"And take your boots off", i call behind me.


End file.
